


Split Lips and Isolated Incidents

by Applesandbannas747



Category: Fence (Comics)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-10
Updated: 2020-02-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:27:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22642573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Applesandbannas747/pseuds/Applesandbannas747
Summary: When Seiji breaks up a fight, he isn't prepared for the aftermath.
Relationships: Nicholas Cox/Seiji Katayama
Comments: 54
Kudos: 186





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had grand and noble intentions of keeping a pattern going with Nick/Seiji POVs. I’m sure no one really noticed it or cared but I _did_ have one going (except I already broke it once, but that one doesn’t count. this one does) Suffice it to say that I didn’t mean to have two Seiji POVs in a row BUT keeping an already-broken-once-pattern-no-one-but-me-even-knows-about going wasn’t enough to dissuade me from the chance to have 7/7, 6/6, 5/5, 4/4 chapters in order on my profile so here we are. If any of you say anything that tempts me into expanding this fic (it’s happened before, you sneaky bastards <3) somewhere before we get to the end I will riot. I’ve sacrificed too much to not have this be exactly 4 chapters

Seiji pulled out his phone, dialed, and had his thumb hovering over the call button before shouting out.

“If you don’t break it up, I’m calling the cops.”

His voice rang out clear and commanding, too loud, too imposing for the ruffians to ignore. He’d learned that the threat of police was enough to end most fights he ran into, but he wasn’t bluffing, he _would_ press call. He didn’t have to today, though. The bigger of the two fighters shot him a nasty glare, spat in his direction, and ran off.

The second boy didn’t run, his back was still to Seiji, displaying the rise and fall of his shoulders, clad in worn, black leather. He must be watching after the first, Seiji thought. To see if he was coming back before letting down his own guard. The boy didn’t seem particularly dangerous but Seiji didn’t turn off his phone as he continued on his way. He had things to do and places to be and he wasn’t about to let stupid teenage antics slow him down.

As he stepped nearer to the scene of the fight, however, Seiji expected the boy to run along too. His type didn’t like to stick around for repercussions. But he didn’t seem concerned at all and, looking at him now, wasn’t there something familiar about that stupid haircut?

“Seiji, I thought I heard your bossy voice,” he said, turning his back on the other boy’s escape route and grinning lopsidedly at Seiji. “What’re you doing here?”

“Nicholas,” Seiji said. It was all he could manage to say. He hadn’t expected this and his brain was taking much longer than necessary to process the sight before him: Nicholas Cox in his typical all-black attire with a leather jacket Kings Row would never allow, knuckles bruised, lip bloodied, and a cut splitting his left eyebrow. Seiji suspected he’d have a black eye to go with it soon. Seiji had never seen him like this.

“Take a wrong turn on your way to your mani-pedi?” Nicholas snarked, lips pulling into another smile, crooked only to protect his busted lip. His canines were sharp, Seiji noticed, then wondered why he’d notice such a thing. It was the whole look of Nicholas, really, that seemed sharper than Seiji had ever thought of him. He looked a little dangerous, the gleam in his eye and those canines bared in a grin lending him a predatory air. Seiji swallowed hard. He wasn’t scared of Nicholas—that thought was laughable and Seiji was already clicking off his phone and slipping it in his pocket. It wasn’t fright that had him so unsettled by this surprise run-in with his irritating roommate. It was something much, much worse.

“What were you fighting over?” Seiji asked, collecting back his thoughts.

“Does it matter?” It wasn’t a deflection of Seiji’s question—not one that was meant to hide anything, in any case. It was a genuine question. To Nicholas, clearly, it wasn’t a big deal.

“Yes,” Seiji said, not one to be deterred. “I’d hate to associate with someone who starts fights over dumb things.”

“Who says I started it?” Nicholas protested but waved off Seiji’s answer. “It was just the usual stuff, guy was being a jerk and needed to be punched.”

“I’m not sure I’m reassured.”

“Your turn. Why are you here?” The question and the incredulous way in which it was asked were both warranted. Looking around, it was clear Seiji didn’t belong on these streets with their grubby disarray and graffitied walls.

“Take a wild guess,” Seiji said, trying for the irritation he usually felt when talking to Nicholas.

“I’ve got one,” Nicholas said with a sweep of his eyes over Seiji. “But it’s a little too wild to be right.”

“You’re obviously the only connection I have to this place. I was looking for your house, actually, when I ran into you.”

“Threatened to call the cops on me, you mean?”

“Serves you right for fighting in broad daylight.”

Nicholas shrugged one shoulder up in acknowledgment of the truth to this.

“You found me. So what did you need from me?” He asked. At this particular moment, what Seiji needed was for Nicholas to not look so good in a leather jacket and a black eye.

“Our things got mixed when we were packing,” Seiji focused back on the issue at hand. “I think you have my journal.”

“And you couldn’t have waited to get it back next week?”

“It’s very important to me.” Seiji rather expected to be made fun of but Nicholas turned around and beckoned Seiji after him.

“Follow me.”

Seiji stayed a step behind Nicholas at first to try and put distance between them in more ways than one. But he kept noticing how broad Nicholas’s shoulders were and…

Seiji sped up. In step with Nicholas, he didn’t have to look at him at all. And that was for the best.

Seiji had gotten close on his own, the remaining walk to Nicholas’s house only taking a handful of minutes to complete. Nicholas’s keys jangled as he unlocked his front door and flung it open unconcernedly, gesturing Seiji inside. Seiji hadn’t considered before then just how peculiar it was to be here. He’d thought only of retrieving his journal and had gotten Nicholas’s address off of the Kings Row mailing list, never pausing to consider that coming here meant…being _here._ In Nicholas’s house. Seiji took off his shoes gingerly and placed them by the door, ignoring Nicholas’s snort as he traipsed by with his high-tops still laced up.

“All my school stuff’s on the desk,” Nicholas told him carelessly, pushing open another door. But Nicholas didn’t go through it, instead, he went into a smaller room with a sink. Feeling like an interloper, Seiji edged into Nicholas’s bedroom alone and looked for the aforementioned desk. His eyes took in the scuffed and peeling wallpaper, the patched quilt, and, finally, landed on the beat-up old desk. There wasn’t much else in the room for them to land on.

Seiji looked once more to the door, expecting Nicholas to come in any moment but he could hear the tap running in the other room.

 _It’s just a room,_ Seiji told himself impatiently. He was only here for his journal. Purposefully, he strode into the room and sorted through the haphazard stack of notebooks and textbooks, finding his simple Moleskine journal tucked in between their history book and the novel they’d been assigned to read over fall break. Relieved, Seiji freed it and turned it in his hands, examining for any signs of damage. There were none. His journal was in perfect condition.

Seiji tidied the remaining books and papers into a neater pillar and set the large jar next to it straight. Why did Nicholas have a jar on his—Seiji pulled his hand away quickly, noticing the simple label on it: _bills._ He averted his eyes guiltily. Seiji couldn’t help but feel that he was intruding, like he was seeing things he had no right to. But Nicholas had let him in here so easily, unashamed and unconcerned. Even so…

Seiji almost slipped on a stray piece of paper left out on the floor on his way out of the drab room. Looking down, he found the floor was scattered with papers and clothes and other miscellanea. It made Seiji think of their shared room at Kings Row and he couldn’t say he was impressed with Nicholas’s habits. There were other similarities too, Seiji noticed, such as the posters up on these walls, ones with masks and épées and fencers like those over his bed at Kings Row. And, all at once, Seiji felt better about being here. Because he’d been here before; in all the ways that Nicholas lived here, in this space, he lived at school too, in a space Seiji had to share with him.

“You find it?” Nicholas called. More carefully than before, Seiji made to exit the bedroom and found Nicholas in the bathroom with a first-aid kit opened on the sink’s counter.

“Yes, thank you, I did.”

“Cool.” Nicholas didn’t look up from his attempts to put a butterfly bandaid on his knuckles where the skin had split and wouldn’t stop bleeding. Seiji lingered awkwardly in the doorway. Was he meant to leave now? Yes. Yes, now was the time to leave. Nicholas obviously expected it. He should apologize for the intrusion and see himself out. He had what he’d come for.

“Here, let me,” Seiji took the bandage from Nicholas, placing his Moleskine journal on the bathroom counter, far enough away from the sink to be out of danger. Nicholas was too surprised to protest, his fingers yielding to Seiji’s manipulation easily. “I’m assuming you already washed your hands and put on antiseptic?”

“Uh, yeah,” Nicholas sounded a little dazed. But his surprise wore off quickly enough and he leaned back against the counter as if he’d expected this to happen. Seiji could feel the weight of his eyes and it prickled his skin as he pulled Nicholas’s back together with white strips.

Satisfied with his work, Seiji looked up from Nicholas’s hands and right into brown eyes that he was used to seeing alight with humor or dark with anger. They were neither of those things just then. More intense, even, than Seiji had seen them on the piste. It sent a thrill down Seiji’s spine.

Seiji looked away, catching the reflection of his own scowl in the mirror, and grabbed a washcloth sharply from its stack, reaching around Nicholas to run it underwater. The movement brought him too close against Nicholas, a huge oversight that he regretted deeply before turning off the tap and pulling away to inspect Nicholas’s face again, this time armed with a washcloth.

It was unfair how well Nicholas wore the fight on his face. You shouldn’t get more attractive because of some blood and bruises. _Not_ that Seiji thought Nicholas was attractive in the first place. He was too—too annoying to be any such thing. And he had truly, stupendously stupid hair, especially freshly shorn as it was now, the tightly shaved section in stark contrast with the disaster of hair that flopped too long on top. It wasn’t a good look. Not at all. Especially not when paired with that horrid leather—

“You gonna use that or just stand there, staring?” Nicholas’s face lit up in familiar amusement.

“I’m not…Sorry, I wasn’t trying to, I’ve just—,” _lost my mind._ It was all the fault of the ridiculous jacket Nicholas had neglected to take off and the effect it lent the evidence of his fight, making him look tough and—

Seiji started in on Nicholas’s face, dabbing it as gently as he could in his sudden need to eradicate it of blood and grime. It was unprecedented that he should look so good in it and Seiji was determined to take that away. He wanted to see his stupid roommate’s face instead of this action hero type he kept seeing instead.

“Why are you acting so scandalized?” Nicholas asked with a laugh that was shaped differently from his swollen lip. “You know I fight. I fought you, like, a month ago.”

“But it didn’t leave you looking like this. I thought—my emotions got away from me and I thought yours might have too. I thought it was an isolated incident,” Seiji said, discarding the cloth and taking up an alcohol wipe. His tussle with Nicholas in the closet seemed properly juvenile compared to this. And Nicholas seemed so used to it, it was baffling. “If all your fights are over something as dumb as ours was, I can’t say I’m impressed.”

“So you agree that you were being dumb, asking me about Jesse Coste?” Seiji wasn’t gentle with the alcohol pad, pressing it against Nicholas’s split lip without warning or care. “Ouch, okay, I take it back,” Nicholas yelped, grabbing Seiji’s wrist and pulling his hand away.

“If you want to talk about your ties to Jesse instead of the reason for your fights, that’s fine by me.” Seiji broke out of Nicholas’s grip but he was nicer about cleaning up Nicholas’s brow bone, nose, and a cut on his cheek.

“If you’re so determined to know, most my fights are like ours, I guess,” Nicholas said slowly, pondering. Seiji considered his face, cleaned up as much as it could be. He didn’t think there was any benefit to using bandaids or wound closures on any of the cuts, so he finished with generous smears of antiseptic.

“Do you enjoy it? Fighting?”

“What? No. No, I just—like you said, get caught up in my emotions. Only, I do that _all the damn time_ instead of once in a blue moon. People say stuff and I get pissed and next thing I know, I’ve run my mouth or swung my fist. But that guy today—and all the rest—deserved it more than you probably did.”

The admission startled Seiji, which brought back the crooked grin.

“You’ve told me on several occasions that you’d like to punch me, among a colorful variety of other things.”

“Aww, I didn’t think you listened,” Nicholas crooned. Seiji considered a kick to the shins but, ultimately, decided that was too childish. “I didn’t say you didn’t have it coming. You totally did. You’re such a dick, did you know that? But you’re not racist, homophobic, sexist, or any of that shit. And you’ve never implied my mom’s a whore or my dad left because he didn’t want me or that I’m—whatever, you get the point.”

“Is that...common for you? To be told those things?”

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have told you all that.”

“I asked.”

Nicholas shrugged, agreeing but clearly conveying he still thought he’d shared something unnecessary. Seiji watched his shoulder bump up, watched the way his awful jacket shifted as he did. Stupid jacket. But fights Seiji couldn’t fault Nicholas for. He wondered what Nicholas’s sparring partner today had said to earn Nicholas’s fist. And to be worth earning all that blood and all those bruises in return. Nicholas wasn’t likely to share that. He’d already overshared in his eyes and Seiji wasn’t someone Nicholas would confide in, wasn’t someone that should care to be confided in, either. But the knowledge of the slights Nicholas endured and fought against...it painted the beaten face in front of him in a different light. And it had already been bad enough when it had only been petty, stupid fights. Now, impossibly, the split in Nicholas’s lip and cut in his brow seemed noble to Seiji.

“Seiji, I’m serious,” Nicholas sounded it, too. Seiji couldn’t stop examining his face, his stature. “If you keep looking at me like that, I’m gonna have to do something about it and you don’t want that.”

“Don’t I?” Seiji asked, strangely breathy. What was he saying? Of course he didn’t.

Nicholas watched Seiji back, scrutinizing him as though trying to figure out a particularly difficult puzzle. When he came to his answer, Nicholas drew Seiji to him, still leaned up against the sink. Seiji didn’t protest to the hands at his hips or the pull that accompanied their arrival. It was all so surreal, all Seiji had time to register before it happened was the sound of blood rushing in his ears and the feel of his heart kicking against his chest in something that might have been panic. Or it might have easily been anticipation and excitement.

And then it happened.

Nicholas was kissing him, just like that, and Seiji’s heart dropped into his stomach as a tide of desire finally broke through the dam he’d been building ever since seeing Nicholas’s sharp teeth and glinting eyes out on the cracked sidewalk this afternoon. It flooded him, drove him farther against Nicholas, prompted his hands to find soft leather and hold it roughly, pulling Nicholas harder against him as well. The kiss was rough too—a clash of lips and tongues and teeth, quick and hard and packed with a desperate urgency. This kiss couldn’t last too long because it wasn’t right and they both knew it. Whatever this was, it wasn’t solid, couldn’t be taken for granted. Which meant a grab for everything that was wanted before the opportunity was lost forever.

Seiji didn’t care for Nicholas, found him troublesome and exhausting. But it was impossible to deny the sheer attraction Seiji felt for Nicholas when it felt like his hands were burning through Seiji’s sweater, through his shirt, right to his skin. It was impossible to deny that, right now, Seiji wanted this when every swipe of tongue or pull of teeth sent him careening deeper into Nicholas’s arms.

With an involuntary sound as Nicholas’s hands swept up his body, Seiji finally let go of the jacket and wrapped arms around Nicholas’s neck, but there was no hair to grip on there. And Seiji felt very much like he needed a grip right now. He pushed a hand up the back of Nicholas’s head, over hair so short it almost tickled Seiji’s palm, and eventually came to grab a handful of hair long enough to be tangled into, consequently pushing Nicholas’s face harder into his.

Nicholas grunted. Seiji thought his mouth tasted strange for a moment. But Nicholas didn’t slow down at all and Seiji almost forgot it. Until he realized that there was some care to this kiss, after all, that each kiss was shaped with—and around—a split lip.

“Nicholas,” Seiji said sharply, breaking the kiss, to Nicholas’s dismay, “your _lip.”_

“Yeah,” Nicholas’s eyes twinkled and his mouth smirked, “Those are generally used in kissing. Impressed?”

“Shit, I think it’s split open again—where’s that stupid cloth?” Seiji was feeling along the counter frantically. When he found the damp cloth, he ran it under cold water and wrung it out, not having to lean any closer to Nicholas to reach the sink this time. He was already as close as he could possibly get.

“Seiji, I’m fine—,” Nicholas’s words muffled and then cut off as Seiji pressed the cool washcloth to Nicholas’s lip.

“That must have hurt. How stupid do you have to be?”

“Worth it,” Nicholas mumbled through the cloth.

All at once, the absurdity and reality of this situation hit Seiji. He was standing in Nicholas Cox’s bathroom, holding a cool compress gently against the lip he’d just re-split by _kissing_ it, and Nicholas’s hands were still holding him, his chest still close enough to potentially feel the beating of Seiji’s heart. Worse, Nicholas was looking at him with that glint still in his eyes. That fierce enjoyment.

Seiji tore out of Nicholas’s arms, pressed the washcloth into Nicholas’s chest, forcing him to take it, and fled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know dude, one day i was just looking at that picture of Nick in detention and i was like you know what? that's A Look. beat up and bloody is a good aesthetic and I thought it would be HILARIOUS if Seiji was accidentally into bad boys lmao (and i was right. i STILL think it's funny)
> 
> oh and also, in case any of you are wondering why the _fuck_ I keep mentioning Seiji's journal, there's a reason for that:  
>   
> For once, I didn't just make that up lmao


	2. Chapter 2

Seiji had forgotten his journal.

* * *

_How_ had he managed to forget his journal? He’d specifically gone to all the trouble—stupid, inconsiderate trouble—of tracking Nicholas down and for what?

For a kiss, apparently.

* * *

Was his journal still on the sink? Seiji didn’t like being without it for so long and he’d been worried ever since Saturday that Nicholas had carelessly splashed water across the counter, the way Seiji _knew_ Nicholas was wont to do. When he got his journal back, Seiji worried at the state it would be in.

And which was worse—water-stained or read?

* * *

The closer fall break came to ending, the more nervous Seiji felt about the state of his journal. He kept picturing it on the counter in Nicholas’s bathroom. The counter Nicholas had leaned against as Seiji had patched him up. The sink Seiji had kissed Nicholas against.

It was possible he was worried about more than just his journal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is so fucking funny to me that y’all ended up getting _this_ for Valentine's Day lmao how unromantic can you get???? here you go, have 160 words about a journal with absolutely no substantial content XD that’s fucking fantastic, I’m dying. the schedule really pulled a fast one on us all but I'm sticking with it


	3. Chapter 3

Nicholas was not in the room when Seiji returned but his bag was back, tipped over amidst a nest of blankets on the bed, which followed, logically, that Nicholas was somewhere on campus. An inkling of nerves curled in his stomach as he considered running into Nicholas. Obviously, it was bound to happen sooner or later. Very probably, it would happen sooner. He wasn’t sure if the idea of meeting Nicholas out on the grounds or in one of the many strewn buildings that made up Kings Row was worse than the idea of seeing him again for the first time since the incident alone in their shared dorm room. Either way, he wasn’t sure how he was meant to behave. Wasn’t sure what face he ought to make or even what face he _would_ make.

Seiji’s biggest hope was that Nicholas would fail to mention anything—fail to so much as acknowledge anything abnormal had happened. Knowing Nicholas, Seiji braced for the worst.

Deciding it was pathetic to dictate his day based on meaningless worries like how to greet _Nicholas,_ of all people, Seiji determinately went about his business as usual. He unpacked his things, went to the library to return a book he’d needed for the history report he’d worked on over break, took lunch by himself in the cafeteria as always, and returned to his room, planning on fine-tuning that history paper while he had the time.

“I wasn’t sure if you were back or not,” Nicholas said when he came in. “Your stuff’s already put away and you’re so freakishly neat, I couldn’t tell the difference between this morning and now. But I thought I saw you earlier.”

Nicholas’s black eye was faded, his cuts healing, and his lip more or less back to normal. Seiji didn’t linger long on that last detail. Soon, Nicholas’s face would be entirely back to normal, all evidence of Seiji’s temporary insanity fading with each injury healed. It was a relief to see Nicholas back in the context of school, back in Kings Row issued attire—though _why_ , exactly, Nicholas was wearing the rugby shirt, Seiji wasn’t sure.

“Do you have my journal?” Seiji asked, skipping the pleasantries. “I believe it ended up spending the break at your house.”

Nicholas didn’t answer right away. But a smile broke through, a little lopsided as if in memory of the split lip, and he gave his reply. “Yeah, sure. I’ve got it.” Nicholas located it quickly in the mess of his bag, like he’d known exactly where he’d put it. Seiji was relieved to see it looked fully intact and unharmed. “You forgot it at my place,” Nicholas added, still with that grin. Blunt and pointed, the simple observation named what Seiji had not wanted to, conjured up memories of the circumstances that had led to Seiji’s uncharacteristic forgetfulness.

“Yes, well. I’d like it back now.” Because Nicholas had not moved since retrieving the journal, Seiji stepped up to him, hand out. Reluctantly, he amended his statement. “Please.”

“Of course.” Nicholas handed the journal over but, as he did, his grin faded and his eyes took on a searching intensity. For the second that Seiji’s journal was between himself and Nicholas, both their hands claiming ground on it, Seiji felt Nicholas’s gaze on him in a shiver down his spine. He felt exposed. He felt _seen._

“You read it.” Not a question. Not even an accusation. Simply a realization so huge, it had to be said. Nicholas’s brief flicker of shame confirmed it completely. Seiji’s lips turned in a sneer. “I trust that your reading over break was a good bit more entertaining than you’d anticipated.”

Nicholas winced. “It was an accident.”

“Accident? How do you _accidentally_ read somebody’s personal journal?”

“It—I was curious why it was so important to you and I—when I was moving it back to my room to put with my books, I couldn’t help it. I wasn’t going to touch it again after I put it somewhere safe, I really wasn’t. I just wanted a peek. You came so far and went through so much effort because you didn’t want to be without it for a week and I kinda flipped through it. Just real fast, like, too fast to really see anything—,”

“That’s still an invasion of my privacy—,”

“I wasn’t going to _read_ it. But I saw my name.”

Seiji could imagine what Nicholas might have thought his name was doing in Seiji’s journal, especially with a kiss so fresh in his mind. The thought of that alone was embarrassing, even if it was blatantly false.

“So you decided that gave you the right to read it.”

“It was about me,” Nicholas sounded sulky and defensive and he caught it too, sighing loudly. When he spoke again, his tone was level. Earnest. “I had to know what you were writing about me. I know I shouldn’t have, Seiji. I’m sorry. It was a huge invasion of your privacy, I know that. I _knew_ that. But I read it anyway. And I didn’t stop after the passage about me. I read it all.”

Seiji felt heated all over, angry and exposed. No one had ever read Seiji’s journal. No one was allowed to _touch_ it except for him. But Nicholas had. He’d sat on his bed, leaned up against a wall or found a chair or couch or spot of floor to sit on and he’d run fingers over the cover, cracked open the spine, thumbed through the pages. Read every word Seiji had ever written in it. It didn’t matter that none of its contents was embarrassing or scandalous, the idea of Nicholas seeing it so thoroughly made Seiji squirm as if Nicholas had cracked _him_ open instead of his journal. Seiji detested the feeling of it.

“I should strike your name from my records. I shouldn’t have included you at all. You’re of zero consequence.” Seiji spoke with malice but Nicholas didn’t flinch. Why would he? He’d read the passage himself, the first one he’d appeared in. And he’d seen with his own eyes how Seiji had marked his name and taken note of him after just the first time they’d fenced. And it was this new insight of Nicholas’s into Seiji’s records of and thoughts on all his matches that made Seiji feel far more vulnerable and intimately known than he had even when Nicholas had kissed him, while Nicholas’s hands had been roaming his body freely.

* * *

Nicholas looked guilty each time Seiji so much as glanced at him in the following days. He mouthed _sorry_ s and behaved more decently than Seiji had ever seen him do before, actually making an effort to tidy their shared space and leaving hot water after showering. It was a long and drawn-out apology for his atrocious disregard and disrespect for Seiji’s privacy.

_At least he hasn’t mentioned the kiss._

Seiji slammed his reading shut, unable to focus on it. Nicholas wasn’t in, the room left empty and relatively clean. How long Nicholas’s subdued and placating behavior would last, Seiji wasn’t sure. Not for long, probably. There wasn’t any need for it, in a way. Seiji _was_ upset about the journal. But he couldn’t think why Nicholas would care so much that he was. Why he’d try so hard to make it up to Seiji. Even when—if—Seiji forgave him, it wouldn’t make a noticeable difference. They’d never been friends. Nicholas reading his journal hadn’t _ruined_ anything, it was just another thing to dislike him for.

A frustrated sigh escaped Seiji’s lips. Every time he thought of Nicholas pouring over his journal, he got antsy in a way he wasn’t used to. His body was crying out to snatch his journal away, but it was past time for that and, anyway, his journal was tucked neatly away now, safe from prying eyes. Seiji’s eyes lingered on his bag, which held the journal. Impulsively, Seiji pushed away from the desk and retrieved the book from his bag, flipping it open and reading idly. As he did, he imagined Nicholas doing the same. He wondered uselessly what Nicholas had thought of his records.

Even more uselessly, Seiji wondered if Nicholas had read it in bed. On top of that patched quilt or under it? It was a curious and not entirely comfortable sensation when Seiji realized how clearly he could picture it. He’d been to Nicholas’s house. Stood alone in his room. Pushed his way in and pushed his way back out again.

Seiji stared down at the page that must have caught Nicholas’s attention initially. 

___ March 27th, 2018—Nicholas Cox * _

Seiji didn’t read the passage. He stared at the name, thought of the boy. Standing against a sink in a tiny, dim room. Telling Seiji why he fought.

Maybe it was fair, in a way, that Nicholas had read this. He’d shared something of himself with Seiji that day, had shown him a glimpse into his life that he hadn’t intended to any more than Seiji had intended for Nicholas to read the journal and get a glimpse into _his_ mind.


	4. Chapter 4

Nicholas’s bruises healed up completely, leaving him looking entirely ordinary and just as he’d always looked before. But Seiji kept finding himself looking at Nicholas’s face as if there was still something interesting there to see. It wasn’t a good sign.

“Did you know,” Nicholas said, catching him staring. Seiji’s heart jumped, perhaps expecting Nicholas to say _if you keep looking at me like that, I’ll have to do something about it._ But he didn’t. “Eugene, Harvard, _and_ Williams all asked me separately what was up with my face. I’d have been offended but they were all so worried about me, it was kinda sweet. But I’m sure there’s nothing up with my face anymore so what’s up with you?”

“Nothing,” Seiji snapped. “And I don’t much care what’s up with your face. I can’t imagine why the others would either.”

“Coming back to school after a week at home with a face full of bruises? I guess it’s a little suspicious.”

“I hadn’t even thought of that.” Seiji was appalled at the very thought of that particular implication.

“I’d hope not, you interrupted me while I was getting them. Like I said, usually I’d be offended at those assumptions but I can’t really blame ‘em when they were just looking out for me.”

Seiji nodded, not sure what else to say. Then noticed that, while they’d been talking, he’d gone back to staring. He redirected his gaze quickly. Too quickly. Nicholas laughed but let it go. Seiji wasn’t sure why. Wasn’t sure why Nicholas had let _any_ of it go. He’d expected much more damage control than this. But Nicholas had stayed quiet and his good behavior had hardly slipped at all, though he’d stopped apologizing every chance he got.

* * *

The door crashed open and Nicholas crashed in. The noise and abruptness of it was enough to make Seiji reflexively jump to his feet. The door slammed shut again and Seiji squinted in the darkness, eventually making his way to flip on the lights himself.

“Really, Nicholas, _what_ is the meaning of this? I was trying to sleep and you burst in like you’ve got a murderer in your pursuit—,” Seiji cut off in his scolding, eyes finally having adjusted and focused. “Are you alright?”

“Fine,” Nicholas’s demeanor lightened the smallest bit as he answered. “Just a fight.”

“I can see that.”

Nicholas had a bruise blooming high on his cheek and his knuckles were bloody again. He didn’t look in as bad of shape as he had when Seiji had found him over fall break. But he was in that black leather jacket again. It didn’t do anything strange to Seiji this time. At least, not by much. It fit Nicholas well and Seiji liked the look of it, but all the feelings it had incited in him when he’d first seen Nicholas wearing it had not been as easily shed as the jacket, so seeing it again didn’t reawaken anything much. It would be a lie, however, to say the jacket and the vibrant fierceness to Nicholas’s expression didn’t sharpen all those feelings.

“It wasn’t on campus,” Nicholas said, a bloody hand roughing through his hair.

“Don’t touch anything,” Seiji insisted, accidentally grabbing Nicholas’s arm and pulling it away from his head. Then, since he already had the arm, he yanked Nicholas into the bathroom and ran water over the split knuckles. When the water ran clear again, Seiji turned it off and looked at Nicholas, frowning. “If you hit another student, it might not matter. If you get yourself a suspension, it could mean—,” It could mean he’d be off the team.

“It wasn’t. It was just an asshole at the mall.”

“How can you be so reckless?” Seiji demanded, thinking through possible ways this fight could come back to Nicholas here at school. “It’s one thing on your own time, in your own neighborhood. But at school, Nicholas? Even if it was only a stranger and even if it was off grounds, you should have known better.”

“It was only a little punch,” Nicholas said, grinning all the wider for Seiji’s concern.

“Dare I ask what it was about this time?” Seiji sighed, exasperated with Nicholas’s recklessness and even more exasperated with himself for finding it attractive. He leaned back against the sink and crossed his arms, waiting for an explanation. Nicholas shifted uncomfortably, shrugged.

“I was being stupid.”

“Clearly. What over?”

“You.”

“Pardon?”

“I punched out some racist Exton fucker for talking shit on our team. I lost it when they started getting personal. About you.”

“I don’t need you throwing punches for me.”

“I know. I didn’t do it because I thought it’d earn me brownie points or anything. Actually, I knew you’d call me stupid even as I was swinging. I did it because _I_ couldn’t fucking stand listening to that asshole another second.”

“You’re impossible.”

“So are you. I don’t know how you don’t lose your shit more often. I thought you might punch me for reading your diary but you didn’t. That time in the supply room really was it, huh?”

“I told you that was an isolated incident.”

Nicholas leaned past Seiji and it suddenly hit Seiji how close he’d been standing this whole time. There was plenty of room in this bathroom and no more reason to be only inches apart but Nicholas hadn’t moved once Seiji had released his hand. And Seiji hadn’t noticed it. Had been too distracted by other things to be concerned with the proximity. He was concerned with it now.

Nicholas reached behind him, fussing with the tap, which had been left dripping until now. But his own accidental carelessness with water wasn’t Seiji’s main concern at the moment. Nicholas was closer than he’d been since the last time Seiji had found himself in a bathroom with Nicholas and his bloodied knuckles. It was all very much like that last time. Seiji remembered how close _he’d_ pressed against Nicholas to get to the sink.

“And last time—did you let your emotions get away from you then?” Nicholas asked in his ear. “Was that kiss an isolated incident too?”

Nicholas was so close, breathing was somehow difficult. Thinking was even harder. Seiji thought...

He thought wrong.

Nicholas pushed off him and out of the room. Seiji did likewise, feeling indignant at the brief exchange, though he had no real right to.

“After all this time,” he railed, “and _that’s_ how you decide to bring it up?”

“Sorry. My bad, it just slipped out.” Nicholas’s hand was back in his hair. At least this time he wasn’t likely to mat blood into it.

“Sorry? So what? You’re going to make excuses and apologize and pretend that means you didn’t ask? Just sweep it back under the rug?”

Nicholas was regarding him strangely. “I thought that’s what you wanted.”

“I—,” Seiji wasn’t sure what to say. _Yes,_ of course that was what he wanted. But every day since school had been back in session, he’d resented that Nicholas had never acknowledged what had happened over fall break. Nicholas had apologized for reading Seiji’s journal profusely but Nicholas had never once mentioned the other thing he’d done over break. The more important thing.

“What did I say about looking at me like that?” Nicholas asked, shaking his head in a sort of self-directed mirth.

“That you’d have to do something about it,” Seiji surprised Nicholas by answering the challenge. Again. “Well? I’m waiting.”

“Seeing all those matches through your eyes, it was incredible,” Nicholas surprised Seiji with the change of topic. And the way he spoke, soft and unsteady. “I felt like I understood you. The way you wrote it all, concise and to the point and ruthless just like you. And the details you paid attention to, the things you took notice of. And your handwriting, so pretty and precise. All of it—that journal is a little piece of you and I got greedy with actually getting to know you. Really know you. I read every single thing you wrote in that book and it still wasn’t enough. It’s like Pandora’s box, opening it was just the start. I think I kind of fell in love with you through that journal. And I think I’d like to try and fall in love with you outside of it.”

That hadn’t been at all what Seiji had expected.

“So be careful how you look at me, Seiji. Or I’m going to have to try.”

“That journal is my prized possession.”

“I could tell.”

“I’ve never let anyone read it.”

“I’m a jerk for reading it without permission.”

“I’d never have given it.” Seiji would never have given anyone—least of all Nicholas Cox—permission to know him like that. He’d never have expected anyone—least of all Nicholas Cox—to like what they found rather than be bored by it. By him. “I don’t think...I don’t mind it so much anymore that you read it. But don’t make a habit of invading my privacy.”

“I won’t. Not ever again. Promise.”

“And in answer to your question, yes. I let my emotions get the better of me last time. You have a particular talent for making me lose control. But I wouldn’t say it was an isolated incident, necessarily.”

“You mean it?”

“I don’t waste time on things I don’t mean.”

“I thought for sure I was screwed,” Nicholas laughed, happy and relieved. “The way you bolted, leaving behind the thing you’d gone to so much trouble to get...hell, I expected to find your shoes in the entryway too. But, hey, I wanted to thank you. For taking care of me that time. And tonight too.”

“You should stop fighting,” Seiji said, frowning to cover the warmth that was spreading all through his chest.

“I thought you liked it,” Nicholas replied with a wolfish grin, causing Seiji to flush. Had he been that obvious?

“I—Obviously, I don’t like that you were hurt. You may look—,” Sexy? Cool? Ruggedly handsome? Hot? Seiji would sooner burn his journal than say any of those words out loud. “—appealing, in a certain light but it would be better if you stopped brawling.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Seiji stepped closer and took up Nicholas’s left hand, inspecting it closely. It wasn’t nearly as bad as last time. “You need to take better care of yourself if you want to continue fencing. What if you hurt your fencing arm? What if it was bad enough to end your career?” The thought was almost too painful to contemplate and the fully intact and easily healed hand Seiji held in his was reassuring. He wasn’t sure when he’d started to care so much about Nicholas’s career but he did.

On an impulse, Seiji brought Nicholas’s broad hand to his mouth and kissed against the calluses on his thumb, then on his palm. Nicholas’s hand slid from his lips, rough palm rasping against his cheek and wrapping around the back of his neck to pull him in for a kiss.

There was a relief in feeling Nicholas against him again, one so strong that Seiji sighed with it. Nicholas took full advantage. It made a difference having a mouth that didn’t need to be minded for pain, Nicholas maneuvered his lips expertly, manipulated Seiji’s just as well. It was shaped different but still the same. Seiji wouldn’t admit it to Nicholas—the imbecile needed no encouragement—but he really hadn’t minded the shape of their first kiss. Really did find a certain, ludicrous appeal in the sharp and rugged look of Nicholas on the occasions he got into a stupid—and possibly noble—fight. And he _really_ liked Nicholas in this jacket. Wrapping arms around Nicholas’s back and pressing into the soft leather, Seiji wondered if it was possible Nicholas knew he liked it and, further, if he’d intentionally worn it more frequently since fall break because of that. Seiji had never seen the thing before then. He wondered if Nicholas could be convinced into wearing it more often. Perhaps on occasions when they went out together.

Nicholas’s fingers grappled in Seiji’s hair, catching roughly but not carelessly in it. Fleetingly, Seiji regretted not putting bandaids or gauze on those knuckles, just to be sure they were done bleeding. But the gentle tugs Nicholas started up as he kissed sloppily across Seiji’s jaw and down his neck distracted him from all worries.

“Seiji,” Nicholas mumbled against his neck. The way he said it, Seiji was sure Nicholas wouldn’t be the only one with a fresh bruise by the end of the night, only his would be more pleasantly earned. Seiji couldn’t feel Nicholas’s impressive canines against his skin but he saw them when Nicholas detached to give him a wickedly pleased grin. The smile was dangerous, Seiji could already tell by the way it made his stomach flip and his breath hitch.

“I should probably mention,” Seiji said to that dangerous smile and those gleaming eyes, “that I like you. And not just your bad decisions and stupid jacket.”

Seiji was satisfied to see Nicholas’s eyes widen, his smile soften, then broaden in delight. He wouldn’t have expected Seiji to admit it so bluntly, so plainly. Which was exactly why Seiji had actually admitted as much. And it didn’t feel so terrifying to say, all things considered. Nicholas already knew Seiji, already liked him.

“I know I already mentioned it, but I like you too.”

Nicholas’s thumb brushed across Seiji’s mouth and, when he was finished, Seiji pressed it to Nicholas’s again, finding it wonderfully easy to do so, the both of them falling into the renewed kiss with fervor. There was no hesitancy here, not for split lips or uncertain affections.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ah ha! We made it! I know this one was really short but sometimes even I am capable of writing short shit lmao. I hope you had as much fun with the idea of Nick being a 'bad boy' and Seiji being grumpily super into it as I did! Thank you for reading and thank you v much for talking to me in the comments too 💜


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